Our nifty little potboiler begins in the little girl’s room at the local high school. Seems there’s a new girl starting today, and Connie (Jana Lund), the leader of the all girl-gang, The Hellcats, has called a meeting and wants to initiate the newbie into the fold by using the dreaded "slacks" test to see if she’s true Hellcat material. With that announcement, Dolly (Susanne Sidney), Connie's second in command, throws her switchblade toward the wall, and when it sticks, this triggers the opening credits, accompanied by a typical American International spazzed-out jazz riff wailing on the soundtrack. (A riff we’ll be hearing again and again and again…) When the class bell rings, much to the girl’s delight, they find a substitute teacher filling in today. Better yet, a male substitute -- teaching home economics no less. Making her way to an empty desk, the new girl, Joyce (Yvonne Lime), watches as the overwhelmed teacher asks the class to take their seats; to which Connie replies with the tried and true "Where shall we take ‘em teach?"

Bwahaahaahha! Sorry, but man, that joke cracks me up every single time...

Things quickly degenerates from there, with the girls raising such a big ruckus that it sends the Sub crying to the principal. Telling one of her stooges to watch the door, Connie and the others quickly circle around Joyce. Told if she wants to survive and be popular in school, Joyce had best join The Hellcats. When Joyce fearfully agrees, Connie says it isn’t that easy and she’ll have to pass a few tests first, and as the party breaks up, she also tells Joyce to be sure and wear slacks to class tomorrow. (Finally, the dreaded slacks test.)

The next morning, we meet Joyce’s parents: Roger and Linda Martin (Don Shelton and Viola Harris). A hard working lawyer, Roger thinks his daughter shouldn’t wear so much make-up, or those tight fitting sweaters, and Kid’s need more discipline is his constant mantra. Linda, meanwhile, is so involved with her bridge club and social circle she never has a clue what her daughter is ever up to. Appearing to be just another typical morning breakfast at this household, Dad has yet another conniption with Joyce’s choice of wardrobe before grumpily driving her to school. But when Joyce waltzes into her health and physical wellness class (-- you know, when all the guys had to go to the gym while the girls had to go to the library to see the *ahem* "special" film), the girl discovers she’s been had ... None of the other girls wore slacks. Luckily, Ms. Davis (Rhoda Williams) is one of the few cool teachers The Hellcats don’t give trouble to. (She explains later that it’s because she actually respects the kids.) Her classes are usually an open forum and the topic of the day is boys and the mating habits of the American teen. Cool or not, Davis soon discovers Joyce’s attire and asks if anyone put her up to breaking the school’s dress code. (I believe she’s seen this type of hazing before.) Joyce doesn’t rat Connie out, but is so upset and embarrassed, she runs out of the class -- and right off the school grounds!

Finding her way to a coffee shop, the young owner, Mike Landers (Brett Halsey), sees she’s upset and tries to get her to talk about it. When Joyce tells him what happened, she discovers he's well aware of the hooligan Hellcats. Warning her to stay away from them a little too emphatically, she tells him to butt-out and storms off again ... Going home to an empty house, Joyce's parents eventually show up but pay no attention to the obviously troubled teen. Later, she receives a phone call from Connie with an invite to a party. When Joyce arrives at the abandoned movie theater, she's escorted up to the balcony -- The Hellcats home away from home. Informing the newbie that by not ratting them out she's passed the first of three tests, making her a probationary member. But even for probies there are a few ground rules: namely you can’t be an egghead, a show-off, or a teacher’s pet, and one must never -- EVER reveal the location of their secret fort. Ready for round two, the next test is to steal something, and while Connie and Dolly run interference, Joyce steals a pair of earrings. Later, they wind up at Mike's coffee shop. Pretending to give him the cold shoulder while the other girls are around, Joyce secretly arranges to meet Mike later on -- alone.

After they hook-up, the couple head for the beach, where Joyce confesses to Mike about her experiences so far with The Hellcats. She also reveals that she technically didn’t steal the earrings because she left some money for them. Unable to understand why she would want to join the group, Joyce echoes Connie’s statement of a need for a "home away from home" and says she "has to belong to something." Not buying it, Mike says to consider herself lucky because she has good parents and a place to live. He's right, of course, but Joyce just wishes her parents would show at least a little interest in what she’s doing. They embrace, the waves crash against the rocks, and they kiss. (You figure it out!)

The next day at school, Connie has come up with the last test: Joyce has to ask Riff for a date while he’s talking to his girlfriend, Teri. At this point, we also notice that Dolly isn’t very happy with all the attention Connie’s been giving to Joyce. (Nope. No lesbian subtext there. This is the 1950's. Move along folks, nothing to see here...)They both watch as Joyce passes the last test as Riff dumps Teri on the spot for a chance to go out with a Hellcat on a Saturday night.

On Saturday afternoon, Mike and Joyce have a fight over the party she’s being forced to attend. (Forced?) Ending badly, Mike angrily drives off while Joyce glumly gets ready for her other date. Downstairs, her parents are bickering again ... Mom thinks they need a private vacation, but dad won’t let his daughter stay home by herself. Before Joyce can leave, her dad gets in a few shots on her make up and dress, and after she's gone, the parental bickering continues unabated.

When Joyce, Riff, Connie, and her date, Freddy, arrive at the rocking party, almost immediately, Riff tries to get Joyce drunk, and when she refuses to drink or dance, he dumps her for another girl. Later on, Freddy announces it’s time to play a game of Sardines, where the person who draws the lowest card has to run around in the dark and identify as many people as he/she can. (What does this have to do with sardines? Let me get back to you on that...) When the lights go out and all the girls squeal, and as Joyce fights off a phantom groper, a blood-curdling scream quickly drowns everything else out. Then the lights come back on, revealing Connie’s dead body at the bottom of a staircase!

Swearing everybody to secrecy before kicking them out, Riff and Freddy start cleaning up the place. Turns out the real owners are out of town, so not only is there a murderer afoot, they’re all trespassers as well. (Darn kids!) Driving the shell-shocked Joyce home, the boys find Mike there waiting, wanting to apologize to her. Thinking he’s a cop, a fight breaks out but Mike makes quick work of Riff and Freddy. After they're run off, Joyce convinces him not to call the cops as they head over to Mike’s place so she can treat his wounds. Visibly upset about something besides the fight, she adamantly refuses tell Mike what happened.

Monday at school, when The Hellcats meet, Dolly immediately takes charge. Convinced that someone pushed Connie down the stairs, Dolly swears if she ever finds out whodunit she’ll kill them. Dolly then punctuates this threat by turning a wrathful, accusing-eye on Joyce. Later, Ms. Davis is called to the principals office to meet with Lt. Manners (Robert Anderson). There to investigate Connie’s disappearance, he asks her to identify who the missing girl's friends were, and then send them in one at a time for a little interrogation. Eventually, it’s Joyce’s turn, but she doesn’t crack or confess anything. (Party? What party?) She does finger Dolly as Connie’s best friend (-- Connie? Connie who?), so Manners asks to see her next.

During the interview, Dolly slips up by referring to Connie in the past tense (-- the cops only thought she was missing), and then clams up and refuses to cooperate any further. (You’ll never break me, copper!) After completing the interviews, Manners can’t quite decide if the girls are telling the truth or if it’s all one big organized lie. He talks to Ms. Davis again, since the girls seem to trust her, and asks to be kept in the loop if they confide anything to her about Connie's whereabouts.

The End

High School Hellcats is yet another solid "troubled teen" effort from American International Pictures and director Edward Bernds. Solid is the best word I can come up with when I think about AIP films. No frills. No bells. No whistles. Just a workman like effort that always manages to entertain. As with most AIP films, though, the posters prove a lot more entertaining than the film itself. Hellcats is no different; the lurid poster promises one thing, but delivers something completely different. (See illustrations.) But also, as usual, with an AIP picture, there is more going on here than the titillating title lets on. You could easily write this off as another low-budget exploitation quickie, but Mark and Jan Lowell's script has a little more meat to it than usual. 

All of this comes to a boil when Joyce talks to Mike about why she wants to join The Hellcats. It’s because this gives her the feeling of belonging. (Sound familiar?) She feels her parents aren’t really interested in her but the Hellcats are. Which leads us back to the "home away from home" quote. Which should be interpreted literally as a physical safe home away from her real home.

As usual, American International sides with the younger generation -- much to the delight of its target audience. When her father grounds her, Joyce bites back that children have rights as well as responsibilities. Apparently, Sam Arkoff used to screen the movies to his own teenage kids to get a feel if they got it right. Arkoff disagreed with Walt Disney’s view of teenagers and felt AIP movies needed to be more realistic. And you have to hand it to Arkoff and Nicholson for taking a stand like that. While everyone else was blaming juvenile delinquency on rock-n-roll, comic books and the movies they we’re making, they answered with a film saying the problem lies not in these things but in the growing dysfunctional family. 

Has anyone else noticed that this is the 1950's we’re talking about? And we’re still arguing the same causes and effects fifty years later?